CHAPTER NINE: HIS MERCIFUL FRAGRANCE IN MIRIAM'S MESS

From my book Like a Sweet Fragrance

In less than five seconds, I can go from laughing and smiling to griping and frowning before I even realize what I’m doing. I have assorted names for these embarrassing fluctuations in my character, but the reality is I lose focus on God more times that I care to admit.

The sister to one of the Bible’s most beloved men and a beloved leader in her own right, Miriam, at one point in her life, had a similar problem; yet by the merits of her character and the mistakes she made, she continues to remind me -- several thousand years after her earthly life ended -- how merciful God is. A woman who went from the highest high with the Most High to wallowing in the muck of her own mess, her life, in fact, reminds all of us who have made mistakes to look to God for mercy, and when we do, we’ll discover his merciful fragrance in our midst; in fact, we’ll discover that mercy is definitely part of his plan. 

A young girl who didn’t miss the magnitude of a God moment, a moment that still captures our hearts, Miriam made her own mark in history before she was more famously known as the sister of Moses. Recorded in Exodus 2, her story began in a time of racism, slavery, and ruthless oppression.  A time of murdered babies and an evil pharaoh who, had he been able to see in his own crystal ball, would probably have still done things the same way. Badly. These were the worst of times.  

But it was also a time of strong women:  devout mothers who raised their children in homes of courage and faith, brave midwives who defied a diabolical decree from a tyrannical leader, and a favored Egyptian princess who dared to raise a condemned Hebrew baby as her own son. 

And a time when two million Israelites desperately desired deliverance and God was feared, honored, and respected more than the malicious, proud, hard-hearted ruler who decreed that all baby boys be killed. So when the time came for one courageous mother to hide her son because it wasn’t safe to keep him in her own home, she crafted a basket and hid him in the very water where Pharaoh had ordered all Hebrew baby boys to be thrown while the baby’s brave sister “stood at a distance” (Exodus 2:4) and waited to see what would happen.

Miriam’s courage was about to be tested as an opportunity only God could have orchestrated presented itself, and she was ready. Still standing at a distance, she watched an Egyptian princess discover her baby brother and when it was obvious the woman’s heart was softened by his cries, Miriam stepped forward and acted with heroism that can only be forged in the risky setting in which she lived and offered a solution to the dilemma now faced by Pharaoh’s daughter. What to do with this baby?  

What Miriam and her family didn’t know, what the Egyptian princess didn’t know, what Pharaoh didn’t know, but what we do know is that Miriam was part of God’s plan. To anyone watching it might have looked like she was simply standing at a distance; however, it was important for her to be exactly at that place and at that exact time. A small, seemingly insignificant girl simply standing and watching and waiting, but also ready to step forward.

Ian regularly brings home gadgets that he doesn’t want me to lose, but once he came in with the smallest washers I had ever seen and told me that I was not to misplace them, lose them, or throw them away. I was to treat them like pure gold. In God’s plan, we’re not small or insignificant. We’re not lost in the overall plan nor does He misplace us. Like Miriam, who was placed by the water’s edge to watch and to wait and be ready, we are also important to God.

Ironically, because of Miriam’s valor, the baby’s own mother is given back her child to nurse and care for and love, but without the fear that drove her to hide him in the first place, and ironically, a member of Pharaoh’s own family will raise a condemned Hebrew baby as her son. God had a plan, and Miriam was part of God’s plan. 

I was pulling weeds in our garden one Saturday morning, and our fourteen-year-old beagle, Riley, was watching me from the porch. He had quit following me around the yard and plopped himself down to rest. Most of the time his eyes were shut, but occasionally, as I walked by, he’d crack open one eye and stare at me. He didn’t get up, he didn’t even move, but he simply looked to see if there was anything worth standing up for – food preferably.

Watching him watch me, I wondered if that’s what I look like to God sometimes. Plopped down. Napping and Chilling. Not moving too much. Waiting for something good to be tossed my way. And occasionally, just occasionally when His presence was so obviously felt, I’d open one eye – ever so slightly - to see if there was anything exciting going on that I should bother to rouse myself.

Ole’ Riley was missing a lot as the garden is a zoo of activity even when our Texas weather isn’t the most pleasant. Stray, grey cats waiting to pounce on innocent goldfish in our homemade water garden. Annoying moles and scampering squirrels. We even saw one frisky squirrel climb into a bird feeder only to find himself in the precarious situation of being stuck. Then there are these crazy green frogs croaking like they’re on a never-ending diet of steroids.

And my darlin’ dog was missing it because he didn’t bother to stand up and stay close by me as I worked; he was happily resting, but not ready to move.

Watching Riley made me think of all the times – known and unknown – when I’ve done that same thing. When I’ve missed out on the exciting activity in God’s world because I wasn’t ready to move.  God strategically places us to watch and to wait and to wonder, but also to believe and expect and be ready. I’ve probably missed divinely orchestrated opportunities because I didn’t want to stand up and step forward, but there’s still a flurry of activity in God’s world. Plenty of opportunities to stand and marvel at what the God of the Impossible can do. And sometimes important opportunities are disguised as times when all we seem to be doing is waiting and watching and wondering.

Miriam didn’t miss the magnitude of one of these moments. She was watching and waiting and she was also ready. 

The beloved story of Moses and his basket has been told by countless people across the ages. No doubt Miriam told it herself over and over again. And many moments later, many Godly moments later, many miraculous Godly moments later --  as God leads His oppressed people “through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left” (Exodus 14:29) in one of the most beloved miracles of  Old Testament times -- Miriam must have reflected back to that day when she stood on the banks of the river watching over her baby brother, who was now leading millions of men, women, and children to a victorious life of freedom far from the subjugation of their past.  Now she stood on the banks of a new shore, probably once more at a distance but still watching her brother, and when she took “a tambourine in her hand” to praise God, “all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing” (Exodus 15:20).

Once a strong, courageous girl, she was now a strong, courageous woman who led the women, by her example, in singing and dancing and praising God. The ultimate dancing queen -- God-style -- not seventeen, but certainly feeling the beat of her tambourine! And I imagine the others had trouble keeping up with this 90-year-old woman as she danced for God who had once saved her baby brother and who had now saved them all.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us “there is a time for everything.”  For most of her life, Miriam had experienced times of weeping and mourning, but now it was “a time to laugh” and “a time to dance” (3:4) as she encouraged the women to “sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted” (Exodus 15:21).   In fact, all the Israelites sang to the LORD, acknowledging him as their king who “will reign forever and ever” (Exodus 15:18).

Many years later while praising God, King David proclaimed:  “You are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.” Always trustworthy, God was the Holy One enthroned in their praises, their songs, their prayers, and their worship.  In Hebrew, the word for enthrone means to inhabit, to sit down, to remain, to settle. So when we praise God, he is enthroned as our king; he is sitting on his throne in our praises, inhabiting the praises we offer in his name. And as we praise him, the fragrance of our lives – not just the noise in our lives – will spread throughout the world. 

Students today are preparing for jobs that have not yet been invented; we are preparing for a future in heaven where countless surprises await us. Undoubtedly, praising God will defy our wildest imagination as we bow before the throne, singing with the angels, “Worthy is the Lamb,” but our praises begin now. They are part of our present and part of our future! 

I love worship and praise time filled with music which seems to reach out and touch heaven itself. When the worship is so sincere and profound that it grips my soul and nothing earthly can shake it lose. When the music penetrates my bones and I have to dance and lift up my arms and sing. Just like Miriam as she celebrated God as her king.

I’ve whooped with thousands of Aggies at Texas A&M football games in College Station and I’ve cheered with thousands of tourists on New Year’s Eve in Times Square and I’ve worshiped with thousands of Christians at the Billy Graham Crusades in Houston’s Astrodome, but I’ve never seen two million singing, dancing, celebrating men, women, and children praising God at one time! And Miriam was right there leading the women.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this story ended with the best part of Miriam’s life? A time where the future is bright and the present is exciting and the struggles in the past are fading away?  But God’s Word is a book of reality, not fantasy or make-believe; instead, it’s an honest look at real people whose mistakes teach us that singing God’s praises after victory is one thing, yet singing them during a drought is quite a different tune.

When the fragrant smell of victory diminished and the worshipful tune of praise changed channels, Miriam wasn’t standing at a distance but turning the dial as she led, once more, by example. While talking “against Moses because of his Cushite wife” (Numbers 12:1) and complaining that the LORD spoke not just through their brother, but also through them, Miriam and Aaron’s words were heard by God, who immediately came down to deal decisively with this disaster.

1 Chronicles 28:9 tells us, "The LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thought." And the LORD quickly exposed the problem, which was in Miriam’s heart. In fact, as Warren Wiersbe says in Be Counted, “The heart of every problem is a problem in the heart” (48).Behind the mask of concern about Moses’s wife, Miriam’s hidden jealousy, the jealousy that turned her dancing into complaining for there’s nothing to celebrate when jealousy is on the throne, was immediately exposed by God. 

The fragrance of Miriam’s life was exposing a stench that needed to be eliminated. A priest once explained to me that God looks at sin like we look at cancer in a beloved family member. He knows the damage, the destruction that it causes, the pain, and He wants it gone. Sin spreads, sin in leadership is deadly, and sin is not part of God’s plan.

Miriam’s story reminds me of a tale told by Thomas Aquinas involving a “man who heard about a very special ox and determined to have it for his own. He traveled all over the world. He spent his entire fortune. He gave his whole life to the search for this ox. At last, just moments before he died, he realized he had been riding it all the time” (Hansel 96).  Miriam had stopped standing at a distance, ready and waiting, and began looking in the distance for something else. But if we’re listening when God speaks, it won’t take us long to see that God goes right to the heart of the matter. The problem wasn’t with God’s leadership plan -- Moses was where he should be; Miriam was not.

As a gardener I have to step back and look at my garden from a distance in order to see the overall plan of what I’m trying to accomplish. While doing this one day, I was overwhelmed with the importance of the compost. Our soil in many places is grunge and needs supplemental ingredients for the plants to grow. When I mix in the compost, the results are spectacular. Without it, not so much. The compost contributes mightily to the life of my plants and to my final plan.

I haven't seen God part the seas, but in different seasons of my life, he’s dealt with obstacles in my path, and unfortunately, many times that obstacle has been me. Just like Miriam. Moses was her baby brother no matter how old they were at this point. She had helped save his life! Maybe she was tired of being the compost. It’s not the part that anyone sees even though without it, plants don’t thrive.  Maybe she wanted to be the fragrant red rose or the mammoth sunflower or the giant zinnia!

Ian and I were installing a water pot last year, and as he was digging clay out of the ground, which was quite difficult, I was cheering him on; but then I made the unfortunate mistake of saying something quite syrupy like, "Honey, let me know if there is anything I can help you do.”

To which he replied, “OK. Would you squat down right here at my feet and when I pull the posthole digger out, would you scrape all the dirt off my shovel for me?” So I became the dirt-scraper squatter at his feet, which I didn’t enjoy at all; however, by squatting and scraping, I helped him remove the clay out of that hole, and our beautiful water feature is now on our garden path for all to enjoy.

Sometimes we’re tired. We want to be the Rose of Sharon. We don’t want to be the compost. We don’t want to be the dirt-scraper squatter person. But needed and important jobs they are. God has the overall plan.

And God dealt with Miriam’s sin decisively as she was struck with leprosy and removed from the camp for seven days.  In a way, the leprosy on the outside symbolized the disease in Miriam’s heart, the stench and frightful effects of sin that God cannot abide. Miriam’s misery began when she stopped watching for divine opportunities and started worrying about lost opportunities. As I, too, have done. From her mistake, God teaches us to examine our own motivations, and from her punishment we’re reminded that it would be a serious mistake to assume God overlooks sin. 

Psalm 15:2 reminds us to speak truth from the heart. Miriam painfully realized the truth, but I wonder if God were to hand her a divine eraser, would she eliminate this particular record of her life? I think she might want to as the pain and humiliation were dreadful, but would she? Probably as much as any of us who would like to edit our life’s mistakes, but wisdom and warnings come from mistakes, and in Miriam's case, they've now been passed to us.

In Psalm 40:2, David gives the LORD credit for lifting him “out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire” and then putting a new song in his mouth.  He prays, “Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD: may your love and your truth always protect me. For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me” (Psalm 40:11-12).

Miriam had gone from crossing the sea on dry ground to sinking in the mud and the mess in her own heart, but God changes hearts and mercifully gives us a new song to sing.

How did God show mercy to Miriam? First, he healed her and returned her to family and friends; Miriam experienced “a time to mend” (Ecclesiastes 3:7). Additionally, Numbers 12 tells us that it wasn’t until after God brought her back that the people were able to continue on their journey for they only moved when he “went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way” (Exodus 13:1). So God waited on Miriam. Have you ever felt like you were waiting and waiting and waiting for God to answer a prayer? Miriam’s story is a picture of God waiting on us.  Remember, the people didn’t move until God moved first!

Miriam’s moving story grips my heart as I feel her anguish, her shame, and her embarrassment. And I feel the devastation she must have felt when she realized she had been sinning against God. But I think God gave her a new song to sing -- a song of his great mercy, which all of us can sing when we are distraught over mistakes we've made. A song of remembering God's compassion and faithfulness. A song like the one sung in Lamentations 3:19-25:  “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

For years, Billy Johnson’s chickens crossed the road in front of the Bellville Public Library every morning, and every morning I had to stop on my way to school and wait until they meandered to the other side.  Every morning.  For years and years and years. Then one day they were gone. Vanished.  A chicken rapture! And I miss those chickens! Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wish for those chickens. They started my day off with a smile.

Miriam missed a lot more than crazy chickens crossing the road!  Unfortunately, this season is her life was a time of loss, but it was not “a time to give up” (Ecclesiastes 3:6). As I’ve pondered the implications of her life, I’m convinced she is a friend God wants me to have in this particular season of my own life for I’ve come to a time where it would be easy to give up and live with regrets. But I think Miriam would assure us that even if we have regrets, we’re not rejects, but loved and mercifully forgiven. Like Miriam, whose heartache is written all over her story, we have to confess, repent, and leave the regrets behind. And since God’s a worker of wonders, we don’t have to wonder how to do that. Whatever our regrets might be, he’s still in the business of deliverance.

From the ultimate praise leader of all times to a leader who suffered the shame of public humiliation, Miriam’s life was a myriad of extremes. A protector of her family and a leader appointed by God, she slipped into a sinful state and suffered the consequences, yet the  fragrant legacy she leaves behind is much greater than the sum total of her mistakes and her merits even though I feel called to mirror her merits and learn from those mistakes. From her life, I’m reminded to continue watching for divine opportunities, and stop worrying about lost opportunities. To live fully in the present and to examine my motivations. And to understand how serious God is about sin and its consequences.

At the same time, Miriam’s life invites us to look beyond her mistake where we’ll find God’s mercy like a sweet fragrance beckoning us all.